FT, I just can’t believe you believe we need regulators, like Michel Barnier, to save us from Libor scandals

On September 3 you wrote “Barnier’s revolution”, in which you held that Brussels is right to end self-regulations”, like in the case of setting the Libor benchmarks.

Please read carefully your own reporters “Court papers reveal Libor broker called banks ‘sheep’” September 26, and tell us: Now that the market knows what happened, what good can come from having a regulator, perhaps Mr. Michel Barnier himself, overseeing the setting of Libor?

Nothing as unethical as bank regulations that unethically discriminate against those perceived to be “risky”

Sir, Neil Barofsky lets his heart all out, when complaining about unethical behavior in banking, and most especially about the lenient judicial treatment of all those many banks and bankers involved in various unethical actions, like for instance in the Libor rate manipulation, “The Geithner doctrine lives on in the Libor scandal” February 8.

And I don’t want to argue against him, but also need to remind him that, when it comes to unethical behavior in banking, nothing is so unethically as when bank regulators decide to impose capital requirements for banks which favor those perceived as not risky, those already favored, and discriminate against those perceived as risky, those already discriminated against.

These besides odious so dumb regulations, helped to create the excessive bank exposures to what was believed to be safe but turned out not to be, which caused the crisis, and stops many of the most important actors in our real economy from having access to bank credit, which keeps us in crisis.

The truth is that the Libor rate manipulation, in terms of unethical behavior, is pure chicken shit when compared with the interest rate manipulations by bank regulators in favor of “The Infallible and against “The Risky”

Should insurance companies hold more capital for insuring “The Unhealthy” than when insuring “The Healthy One Percent”?

Sir you refer to the discussions on the issue of separating of splitting up banks in retail and capital market units, as suggested by The Vickers Reports and the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards chaired by Andrew Tyrie, “Banking reform”, December 21. 

That is OK but let me remind you that though there have been many scandals which may have resulted from these two activities occurring under one roof, the current crisis, like for instance the losses in loans to Irish banks, in AAA rated securities, in loans to sovereigns, and in real estate financing in Spain, has absolutely nothing to do with that. 

No!, as long as you are able for instance to be more concerned with interest rates manipulation in The Libor Affair, than you are about the much more significant and perverse interest rate manipulation produced in The Basel Affair with its capital requirements for banks based on perceived risk, you stand no chance of achieving any type of real useful fundamental banking reform. 

As I see it anyone who for whatever reason on purpose ignores what Basel II really did to our banking system is an immoral co-conspirator of The Basel Affair. 

Today The Libor Affair has most probably ended with fines paid and no one really being sure who won and who lost, but The Basel Affair, is still going strong, immorally discriminating as much as always, and perhaps even more, in favor of “The Infallible” and against “The Risky”. 

I wonder what you would have to say if insurance companies were ordered to hold more capital when insuring “The Unhealthy” those with preexisting conditions or belonging to the poorer which now are reported to have a lower life expectancy, than when insuring “The Healthy of the One Percent”. 

That would mean that “The unhealthy” would have to pay even higher premiums than what their unhealthy status would explain and merit; and that the “The Healthy of the One Percent” would have to pay lower premiums than what their healthy status would explain and merit. And my friends that is in terms of access to bank credit, precisely what those regulators in “The Basel Affair” are up to.